The concept of a sachet for storing and dispensing of a single serve of a condiment such as tomato sauce or the like is known. See, for example, a selection of patents to Sanford Redmond including U.S. Pat. No. 4,493,574 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,715 which show a sachet arrangement having a ridge portion through which condiment is expressed.
Australian Patent Application 65366/96 discloses an alternative arrangement which utilizes a flat rather than ridge like dispenser arrangement.
Sachets have also been used to store and protect specific items prior to use. Such items can include but are by no means limited to liquid impregnated articles such as tissues and swabs of various kinds. In this context the aperture for expression of the stored article will often need to be larger than in the case where a flowable substance such as a paste or cream is to be expressed.
A problem with both the raised and non-raised arrangements referred to above relates to the sealing of the dispenser aperture during the period when the sachet is being used for storage and, in conjunction with this, the manner of opening or rupturing of the aperture at the time of first use of the sachet to dispense its contents. Particularly where the sachet is not disposed of after initial expulsion of its contents but, rather, is retained for further or subsequent expulsion of contents at a later time problems occur with interaction between the remaining contents of the sachet and the ruptured opening, including in some instances, the degradation of portions of the sachet.
It is an object of the present invention to address or ameliorate one or more of the abovementioned problems or at least provide a useful choice.